


it's a bitter sweet symphony, this life

by hapsburgs



Category: Gallagher Girls Series - Ally Carter
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 17:52:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapsburgs/pseuds/hapsburgs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His lips are on her ear in a flash, a hand tightening on her wrist. "I could kill you, you know."<br/>	There's a long, tense, frozen moment where he can hear her breathing in his ear. <br/>	"I'd kill you first."</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's a bitter sweet symphony, this life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teesandjays](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teesandjays/gifts).



> so I wrote this on a plane under the influence of a particularly awful glass of Chardonnay so it's quality is open to questioning. For Tonya, who is flawless and the abby to my townsend.

_Cairo, Egypt_

"Fuck, I hate Egypt." She says as he approaches her, wrinkling her nose and shoving her sunglasses closer to her eyes.

"It's nice to see you, too." He replies sarcastically, leaning against the tan stucco wall with her. The whole street seems monochrome; just slightly varying shades of beige. The only colors are the pristine blue of the sky and her blood red hair.

"Too much dust, too hot - you know I burn easily." She checks her arms for any signs of redness quickly.

"Did you just make me come here so you could complain?"

"No," She sighs in defeat. "I made you come here so you can try this mint tea." She whips out a cool glass filled with tea and a mint leaf from behind her back.

"You have got to be kidding me." He rolls his eyes angrily, and she grins. "I thought you were in trouble! You said it was urgent."

"This _is_ urgent." She protests, shoving the glass into his hands. "You know, the owner of the shop told me he was a direct descendant of the last pharaoh the the Egyptian empire."

"Promise me this isn't laced in arsenic." He says tiredly, thinking of how many times before he has been dragged across the world by her because of something 'urgent'.

"Scout's honor." She says, giving a mock salute. She watches him take a gulp of the tea eagerly.

"Too bitter." He declares, handing it back to her.

" _What?_ " She cries, examining it.

"Goodbye, Catherine." He sighs, moving to walk away and silently wondering when the next flight back to Dulles is.

"You know what, fine." She says quietly before moving in the other direction. "Goodbye, darling!" She cries over her shoulder. "Kisses!"

He sighs loudly again, and he can hear her laughter in response.

* * *

_Athens, Greece_

"Is he dead?" He asks her when she stands behind him on the footsteps of the Parthenon. It's swarming with tourists, snapping pictures, and talking loudly in a myriad of languages, but between her and him, it's oddly quiet.

She doesn't respond, but moves to sit next to him easily.

He has his answer.

"Did you kill him?" He wonders hoarsely, refusing to look over at her.

"Would it matter if I did?" She says quietly, studying him out of the corner of her eye.

"Yes." He finally decides, looking at her. Usually there's a mischievous smirk painting on her lips, eyes sparkling, but now she just looks curious at his display of emotions.

"I didn't." She replies honestly, and he nods slightly, feeling _something_ well up in his chest. But he knew this was how it ended all along, didn't he? "I'm sorry."

"No you're not." He laughs bitterly. "You're never sorry about anything. You're a _psychopath_ , Catherine."

A long pause. "I could kill them, if you want. The people who killed him. They wouldn't care."

"Is that your answer to this? More killing? Do you think that murder is the answer to every problem?" He shakes his head slightly in disbelief. Part of him wants to accept her offer, truly. _Make them all pay._ But no; he is better than that. He is better than _her_.

She rises to her feet slowly, examining the Mediterranean briefly before turning to him. Her face is a porcelain mask, refusing to betray any emotion. While she can not truly feel anything, he thinks, she likes to examine others' feelings, so she knows just how to mimic them. This is obviously not the reaction she was expecting.

"Yes." She says curtly, and he blinks, because in his mind, his questions were _rhetorical._ "Dead people don't bother you."

"Are you so sure about that?" He squints up at her in the sunlight. She looks for a moment as if she was about to say something, but instead she's gone in the blink of an eye.

* * *

_Bangkok, Thailand_

He spots her from across the party with a handsome man on her arm, whispering something in her ear. Her eyes lock with him for a brief moment, and then she's disentangling herself from the man with a quiet word and making her way towards him.

"Outside." She whispers in his ear, a hand on his shoulder. He waits a moment before following her to the balcony. The roar of the party dulls as he shuts the door behind them, and then all of Bangkok is laid out before them under their feet. "We could jump, you know. The two of us." She's leaning over the railing, examining the street thirty stories below. "They'd think it romantic."

"You need help." He says, grabbing her hand gently and pulling her away from the ledge, and she laughs.

"You're not the first person to tell me that." She leans against him easily. "Why are you here, Joe?"

"Who was that man?" He avoids the question, and she smirks, raising an eyebrow.

"Jealous, sweetheart?" He rolls his eyes in response.

"Of anyone crazy enough to keep up with you? No."

"He's just a man." She shrugs lazily. "I'll probably never see him after I leave Thailand. He does this thing with his tongue, though, where he-"

"Spare me the details." He says curtly, and she laughs again. His stomach constricts a little, but he can't say why. "I came here to check on Zach."

"Why?" She asks in confusion.

"You know, most people _like_ being asked about their children." He points out, and she rolls her eyes again. Really, with all this eye rolling, she has the personality of a thirteen year old girl.

"He's fine, if you must know. Headed to Blackthorne." She admits. "Is that all?"

"Have fun with that man, Catherine." He steps towards the door.

"I actually don't know his name. I never cared to ask." She says.

"Then what do you scream when that tongue of his makes you come?" He asks cuttingly.

"Your name, of course." She doesn't hesitate in her reply. " _Oh, Joe!_ " She fakes a guttural moan, and he groans in exasperation. She steps closer to him, just mere centimeters away, and he can feel the heat radiating off of her body. "Do you want to hear it for real?" She asks slowly, her tongue tracing her bottom lip suggestively.

"Go back inside, Catherine." He sighs, feeling like he's her parent. She raises an eyebrow in _god-knows-what_ , before slipping back inside.

* * *

_St. Petersburg, Russia_

"Smoking's bad for you, you know." He says as he slips into the chair across from in the crowded and musky cafe.

She exhales slowly in his face.

"I know. A vile habit." She makes it look artful, though; the way the smoke pours from her lips in a graceful haze. She waves down a waiter and lowly tells him Joe's coffee order, which she now knows by heart, before stubbing out the expensive cigarette. "I don't do it that often, though."

"You do it just to annoy me, don't you?" He asks when the waiter finally brings him his latte.

"Naturally." She smirks, and he sighs, taking a long sip of his scalding coffee. She mirrors him, looking out the window and drinking her cappuccino. The snow begins to fall harder outside, and they watch the people bravely baring the icy temperatures together. "Edward Townsend tried to kill me last month."

"Oh? Unsuccessful, I assume."

"Of course."

"What'd you do to him?"

"I fucked him." She shrugs, and he really should've expected this. "Hate sex is the best kind of sex, Joseph. All that adrenaline. Followed closely by elevator sex and airplane sex. But hate sex _in_ an elevator, let me tell you-"

" _Catherine_." He closes his eyes in desperation, and when he opens them, she's leaning so close to him he can see his reflection in her black eyes.

"I bet you'd give me better bruises than he did. You have too much restrained lust for me in your veins." She practically purrs, eyeing him seductively, and he feels his heart leap in his chest. "You can slam me against that disgusting wall in the dirty bathroom in the back, if you want."

He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"Fine, then." She leans back. "If you're not here for sex, then what are you here for? Surely not the infamous Russian winter."

"What do you want with Cameron Ann Morgan?" He asks seriously, and her smirk returns.

"You know I can't tell you that." She stirs her coffee pensively. "Why are you so attached to little Cammie, anyway?" Her tone is mocking, and he can feel his blood boiling in his veins. "I have this theory, you know, that you're actually her father - you were just fucking Rachel while Matt was-"

His lips are on her ear in a flash, a hand tightening on her wrist. "I could kill you, you know."

There's a long, tense, frozen moment where he can hear her breathing in his ear.

"I'd kill you first." She replies, and his jaw tightens as he glares at her. She stands with a grin. "Alas, I'm a busy girl. I have places to be, things to do. People to murder."

"Is everything a game to you, Catherine?" He wonders as she pulls on her coat.

"Oh, absolutely." She grins cruelly. _"Meep meep!"_ She chirps sarcastically, and then she's gone in a whirl of smoke and red hair, leaving him to pay for her coffee.

* * *

_Northern Virginia, the United States of America_

He knows someone is in his lake house the moment he steps in. As he flicks on the light, _she's_ there, lounging on his worn leather couch like she owns the place, a glass of red wine in her hand.

"Pinot noir?" She offers.

"Why are you here, Catherine?" He sighs in exasperation.

"I brought this all the way from the Loire Valley." She rolls on like he never said anything at all. "Only three or four bottles are made a year."

"Fine." He resigns, letting her pour him a glass of the blood red wine before sinking onto the couch next to her. She immediately places her feet on his lap. "Why are you wearing my socks?"

"Because my feet were cold." She replies, as if the answer was obvious. "And why can't a friend come to see another friend?"

"We're not friends." He says dully, sipping his wine. _He's going to need a lot of it if he has to put up with Catherine_.

"No? We're not lovers." She says easily with a smirk. _"Yet_."

The silence stretches on for what seems like forever, she watching him carefully and he staring intensely into the roaring fire.

"How's Zach?" She wonders quietly, and he blinks in surprise that she actually cared enough about her son to ask.

"Away with Cammie." He replies. _With Bex and Liz and Macey and Rachel, in Cambridge,_ he adds mentally. "Still hates you."

She makes a little shrug what seems to say _well, that can't be helped_.

"You look good." He comments, taking in her red hair and flushed white skin.

"You look horrendous." She replies as she sips her wine.

"Well, I was in a coma for six months."

"Sorry about that." She says hastily. "But you know I like to make things go _boom_."

"Of course." Really, it's like dealing with a child. And then all of a sudden, she's pushing right into his sides, legs splayed onto his lap, head nuzzled into his chest, and arms around his torso. "Oh, god. Someone's drunk." He puts an arm around her shoulders anyway, and she laughs.

"I have a house in Amsterdam, you know. We could go there. Sip coffee in cafes on the Rembrandtplein and traverse the canals of the Jordaan is a little boat covered in pillows. They'd never find us."

"They would track us down." He points out tiredly, and they've had this same discussion so many times it's mind-boggling.

"They would, but we could try to get away." She says quietly, exhaling slowly. "The next few months are going to be dangerous, Joe. One of us could certainly die."

"I know."

"Then why not go now, and run away?" She looks up at him under dark eyelashes. "It would be sex free, if you want."

"That's not what you want." He can't help the smile threatening to pull at his lips.

"No, that's not what I want." She yawns sleepily, squirming closer to him. "I want _you_ , Joseph Solomon. I want you to fuck me senseless, and... I want you to kiss me."

He glances down at her in languid surprise, but she's already fast asleep. He tries to get up to switch off the lights, but she makes a muffled noise of protest in her slumber and holds onto him tighter, so he resigns himself to sleeping next to her.

It's not that hard, but she's gone when he wakes up.

* * *

A half a year later, in late June, he recieves a postcard with a garishly hideous picture of a windmill on it, massive block letters spelling 'WELCOME TO THE NETHERLANDS' spread on it. It doesn't say who it's from, but he would recognize that scrawl anywhere.

_My offer still stands._

There's an address written hastily after that. He flips it over in his hands slowly, before he smiles slightly, and flops down at his computer to buy a one way ticket to Amsterdam.

* * *

_Amsterdam, the Netherlands_

She doesn't meet him at the airport. Part of him thought she would be, but it would be so out of Catherine's character. Running towards him from the Arrivals gate and flinging herself happily in his arms while otheer travelers cooed was not her style.

(He wouldn't have been angry at the gesture, however).

The taxi drops him off at the address of the card, somewhere on the southern end of Prinsengracht. The canal house is black with white shutters and trim, fresh flowers growing in the boxes on the window sills. There's a bright red bike chained up front, and he can't help but think _this is home_ as he rings the bell.

The door opens after half a minute, and she's grinning wildly. Not a cruel, mocking, _how-pathetic-you-are_ grin, but one of pure, unadulterated joy, and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

And he drops his bags on the step and kisses her.

It's like he's flying, he's on fire, he's an exploding star decorating the heavens, he's being consumed by a force he can not name. He has never kissed her before, in all their years, and my god, what he was missing.

She's also not ripping his clothes off, which he takes hopefully as a sign of newfound maturity.

"What now?" He whispers into her hair. The height different is perfect; she just comes up to below his chin, allowing him to lose himself in her auburn locks.

She smiles gently; a subdued, content smile that he's never seen her make. Her hands lock in his, fitting together like a puzzle finally complete. "We live." She says simply.

And they do.


End file.
